Marquant l'entrée dans la dernière ligne droite avant le Tour d'Italie (9 mai - 1er juin), le Tour des Alpes s'est élancé ce lundi 21 avril de San Lorenzo Dorsino pour une 1ère étape courte (148,5 km) mais déjà corsée. Après un départ marqué par l'hommage rendu par le peloton au Pape François suite à son décès dans la matinée, les coureurs devaient en effet affronter le Campo Carlo Magno (14.4km à 6.2%) puis le Passo Durone (6.3km à 7.8%), dont le sommet était situé à seulement 20 bornes. Et malgré quelques offensives dans ce dernier, c'est un peloton d'environ 25 unités qui s'est finalement joué la gagne à San Lorenzo Dorsino dans ce final en montée jusqu'à la ligne d'arrivée. Un sprint en bosse typé puncheur-grimpeur qui a souri à l'Italien Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek), trop rapide dans cet exercice pour Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) et les deux Français Paul Seixas et Romain Bardet (Team Picnic PostNL).
Crédit : Youtube @TouroftheAlps
« Le vélo, partout & toujours ici » sur
https://www.cyclismactu.net / Cyclism'Actu
Crédit : Youtube @TouroftheAlps
« Le vélo, partout & toujours ici » sur
https://www.cyclismactu.net / Cyclism'Actu
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SportTranscription
00:00the opening day of the tour of the Alps out from San Lorenzo out into the hills and back
00:17well none too small matter of over 3 000 meters of altitude gain crammed into just 148.5 kilometers
00:26and indeed these brave souls went off up the road finley pickering andrew august and david bais
00:33well duking it out on the big climb of the days our mountains jersey up for grabs to tempt our
00:38breakaway and as for those who are chasing on from the peloton well for the day with mountains there
00:44is also days of descending as you well know 33 kilometers the longest descent on the day and
00:52really that was going to be the killing of our breakaways advantage they had had a margin of
00:58just over four minutes and that was coming down slowly but surely to the last peaks that were up
01:04ahead of us well just the run for the line at the end of the day was something of a challenge as well
01:09the last 1400 meters at 6.6 percent it essentially brought out the ambition of teams who had punchers
01:16on board the likes of felix gao the likes of course of jp lopez cicconi most certainly jai hindley
01:24you name it you had a chance today our breakaway though was functioning at its absolute highest the
01:29arms were flicking out they just wanted to share the burden and indeed friendly pickering it was that
01:34just asked india's grenadier's andrew august to come through at that point and bais is both david
01:41and mattia were to be part of today's story our breakaway finally wound in and then it was a
01:47question of who would take out a big reach for the horizon well this final test of the day that was
01:54categorized at 5.7 kilometers in length and the nasty gradients of 8 9 10 even 11 percent only a category
02:03two but once you got up and over the top of it it was a 10k run down to the series of steps that
02:09characterized our finale so nervous times for everybody punches and counter punches last man
02:16standing from the break benny pickering just decided he didn't want quite frankly just for the time
02:23being to back into the pack he is of course working for antonio tiberi ultimately deeper into this race but
02:29he is our mountains man others were tempted to go and forge into the gap eddie dunbar the irishman
02:36two stage wins on love welter last year have not diminished him at all despite a crash in terreno
02:43andriatico he spied me and was showing that he has plenty of ambition for this race as well the irishman
02:50one of the short-handed teams here jaco alula just five on board same deal for ef education easy post
02:56but it doesn't stop them rolling the dice and having a dig eddie dunbar just bouncing off up front
03:02and then who else would indeed sail into the gap it was a big question with 20 kilometers to go and
03:09jefferson cepeda was indeed the man who picked up that card and he played it absolutely beautifully
03:14there was a while that it started to worry those indeed who were still within the pack who would be
03:20motivated to go and cross over to this man he was looking very handy indeed getting the gels where
03:26they needed to be and the sun just kept coming and going high cloud today as well uh caused somewhat
03:32worryment more seishas and paul double were on the double you might say trying to get back at jefferson
03:39cepeda ultimately though a peloton that was starting to thin down with felix gal testing his back wheel
03:44suspicions of a slow puncture for the austrian who starts this race as amongst the absolute
03:50favorites but this was a very thin down peloton that would take on the final run for home possibly
03:5635 riders in total and another base this time it was mattia that set off at the speeds absolutely
04:03the highest considering that we were indeed with some percentages here to deal with and eight and a
04:08half kilometers to go ultimately though it was all about punch and the knockout blow when it came
04:14was giulio cicconi he started off as favorite for the day and he lived up to the billing absolutely
04:20brilliantly cicconi throwing his spectacles away in his characteristic signature celebration
04:27felix gal in second place with paul seishas the brave so two on the podium for decathlon eg tour la mondiale
04:35but little trek who of course won this race in the last two editions with jp lopez and theo
04:40geggenhardt they're now in the lead again with cicconi
04:59you